Megan Crouse and Amy Richau’s Star Wars: The High Republic – Character Encyclopedia continues the tradition begun with the Essential Guides in the 1990s and 2000s and the Visual Dictionaries that DK published. Like the Essential Guides, Crouse and Richau chronicle the characters and events that occurred primarily in prose, though they also reference the animated series, Young Jedi Adventures. They begin their book with a brief summary of the High Republic publishing initiative and its chronology, cataloging the major events that occurred in the novels, YA novels, middle-grade books, children’s books, comics, manga, and animated series.

Crouse and Richau organize their encyclopedia into four main categories: Jedi, threats to the Jedi (including the Path of the Open Hand, the Nihil, and the Nameless), the Galactic Republic, and general citizens. The structure works to their advantage, though the catch-all of citizens seems a bit reductive in comparison to the other groupings. They feature art from all the media in the High Republic, brining each character to vivid life along with a quick summary of their history and essential attributes.

As the third phase of the High Republic has yet to finish and the announced High Republic series, The Acolyte, has only just wrapped filming, this book does not exhaustively cover the High Republic era. In that, it resembles the earlier Essential Guides and Visual Dictionaries that captured snapshots of the Star Wars galaxy at the time of their publication. Crouse and Richau’s guide will help people to follow this publishing initiative and keep track of all the new characters it introduced. ( )